The Big South Conference men's basketball tournament (popularly known as the Big South tournament) is the conference championship tournament in

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...

for the

Big South Conference The Big South Conference is a collegiate athletic conference affiliated with the NCAA's Division I. Originally a non- football conference, the Big South began sponsoring football in 2002 as part of the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS). ...

. The tournament has been held every year since 1986. It is a

single-elimination tournament A single-elimination, knockout, or sudden death tournament is a type of elimination tournament where the loser of each match-up is immediately eliminated from the tournament. Each winner will play another in the next round, until the final mat ...

and seeding is based on regular season records. The winner, declared conference champion, receives the conference's automatic bid to the NCAA men's basketball tournament. However, the conference did not have an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament from 1986 to 1990, and in 1995. Before the 1994-95 season, Campbell departed the Big South due to scheduling conflicts. This left the conference with just five teams having played at the Division I level for at least five years, short of the six such members required by the NCAA for a conference to receive an automatic bid into the NCAA tournament. As a result, the Big South did not have an automatic qualifier to the 1995 NCAA tournament, its first time without an auto-bid since

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; it regained an auto-bid in

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and has maintained an auto-bid in every year since, as of 2021. From 2003 through 2012, the tournament was held mostly at campus sites. In 2003, the semifinals and finals were held at a predetermined site. After that, depending on the year, either the final, or both the semifinals and final, were hosted by the team that won the regular-season title. In 2012, the regular-season champion hosted the quarterfinals as well. Starting in 2013, the tournament was held at a single site for the first time since 2002, specifically Coastal Carolina's new

HTC Center HTC Center, originally known as the Student Recreation and Convocation Center, is a 3,370-seat multi-purpose arena located on the campus of Coastal Carolina University in Conway, South Carolina. It is home to the Coastal Carolina University men's ...

(known at the time of announcement as the Student Recreation and Convocation Center). The tournament remained at that venue until Coastal announced its 2016 departure for the

Sun Belt Conference The Sun Belt Conference (SBC) is a collegiate athletic conference that has been affiliated with the NCAA's Division I since 1976. Originally a non-football conference, the Sun Belt began sponsoring football in 2001. Its football teams particip ...

; the 2016 edition was held at the Pope Convocation Center on the campus of Campbell University. Beginning in 2017, the format changed yet again; the first round is now held at campus sites, with the quarterfinals and semifinals hosted by the regular-season winner and the final by the top surviving seed. __TOC__

Results

Performance By School

;Notes

References

{{NCAA men's college basketball tournament navbox Big South Conference men's basketball tournament, Recurring sporting events established in 1986